Once Upon a Golden Afternoon
by Pashleyy
Summary: In the silence, the Mad Hatter took off his hat and placed it carefully on the table. “It means, dear fellows, that we don’t exist anymore.” And just like that, the black rain poured, and washed everything away.
1. Prologue

This is an idea that has been bouncing around like a pinball in my brain ever since I first read Alice in Wonderland a year or so ago. The Disney movie wasn't my favorite, but the book really found its way into my heart. This takes place after the book, then. Not the movie (any of them).

Anywho, enjoy!

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Once Upon a Golden Afternoon  
**Prologue** – _The Never Was_

The fine line between Alice's consciousness and her subconsciousness grew into a wall rivaling the Great Wall of China as time passed. She lost the place where she could dream, and lost the rabbit hole to wander down, and soon, realized there was never a rabbit hole to begin with. There was never a Wonderland, she had come to that conclusion only a year after her grand adventures. It was all just a daydream, a strange hallucination that was brought upon by the warm summer sun in a golden afternoon. There was never a white rabbit, or a rabbit hole.

There was never a March Hare or a Mad Hatter. There was never a Gryphon or pig baby. There was never a Queen of Hearts.

It was all in her imagination on one golden afternoon.

And so, Alice grew up.

On the night before the wall became a mountain and golden afternoons became fairytales, she overheard her parents arguing. They shouted and raved and ranted, calling Alice's nana incompetent. Earlier that day, Alice had snuck out of the estate to play in the spring-green grassy fields just beyond her backyard. She would sit under a tall, old oak, a book snuggled lovingly in her hands, and read. She loved books. They were her lifeline between reality and those golden afternoons.

"She'll be sixteen soon," her Father ranted crossly, his small wiry spectacles falling down the bridge of his nose with every rampaging step.

"But sir," said the aging Nana, "she's so young at heart, sir."

"Young at heart? Only because you feed her those --- those fairytales!" he spat the word as if it were a sin, and turned to his wife. "She'll be no one's wife if she doesn't stop believing in that rash nonsense!"

Alice sat at the top of the stairs, quietly listening. Ever since she was little, sneaking had been a main hobby, and she had become quite good at it since then. As quiet as a doormouse, her Nana would always mutter. Alice wrapped her small hands around the banister and pressed her forehead against the cool railing. She hated to hear her parents argue, but they did more often than not, and this time she had been the catalyst.

"Maybe," her Mother opted, "its time to send her to the school I went to when I was her age. It's a proper school for proper young ladies. They will teach her etiquette there, and mannerism, and small talk."

"Yes, yes, the Marionette School for Proper Young Ladies," her Father waved his wife off hurriedly. "Then she will leave first thing in the morning."

And all Alice knew, in those simple callous words, vanished.

**---**

The White Rabbit's ears perked, twitched, and suddenly drooped. The tea table had been set, the crumpets cooling on their platters, and the Doormouse snoozed gently in a neighboring tea cup. It was only on arbitrary occasions that the Mad Hatter and the March Hare would invite him --- and other friends of Wonderland, like the good Knight or the queer Cheshire Cat --- and the White Rabbit enjoyed them. It was an easy vacation from the pompous Queen of Hearts.

Ever since Alice's departure, the Queen had been overly pouty and rude. Already she had beheaded a good many of her Card Soldiers, and a few more of the woodland creatures. She tried to behead the Cheshire Cat, but her minions couldn't figure out which head to behead. (The Cat had pulled a dastardly trick on them --- again.)

"Do you hear that?" the White Rabbit asked curiously.

"What is there to hear?" asked the March Hare, cocking one of his own long, furry brown ears to listen. "I don't hear nothing."

"Exactly."

Both the March Hare and the Mad Hatter gave each other a worried look, then the Mad Hatter cupped his hands behind his ears to listen too. There was only silence. Silence in place of a whimsical soundtrack from Alice's music-box heart. The Mad Hatter's eyes grew distant.

"She's not dreaming any longer," he whispered.

The Doormouse even awoke in the silence. "What's wrong?"

"Alice ain't dreaming?" questioned the March Hare. "Gobbledygook ---"

But then, from the deep belly of the South, a dark, malignant cloud rolled. It covered the placidly pink and yellow sky, and drove away the blue sun. It clouded Wonderland in a dark purple haze, and fat black raindrops began to fall.

The Mad Hatter held out his hand. "Alice grew up?"

"Oh d-d-dear," the White Rabbit stuttered. "Then that ---"

"--- that means . . ." the March Hare suddenly stood, his dark eyes fixated on the looming clouds.

In the silence, the Mad Hatter took off his hat and placed it carefully on the table. "It means, dear fellows, that we don't exist anymore."

And just like that, the black rain poured, and washed everything away.

* * *

_Continue? Or No?_


	2. Chapter One

Wow, I really didn't expect such a great response to this story! Thank you all so much!! Well, this chapter isn't quite as long, but it keeps the story moving! I particularly like the father...he's an ass, but he's a slightly lovable ass, all in all. So, without further rambling chitchat... I present a very short, dank, and foggy Chapter Two.

Enjoy!

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Once Upon a Golden Afternoon  
** Chapter One** – _The Marionette on Monday_

The world spun faster, it seemed, once Alice arrived at the Marionette School for Proper Young Ladies. Though, it wasn't nearly as lighthearted and carefree as the Principal might have wanted her parents to believe, and the adjustment had been particularly hard on Alice the first week.

Alice's Father had dropped her off on a cold Monday morning, a drizzle of rain coating the world a gray and misty gloom. Fog hugged the great mansion and the suburban London streets like wool so not even the sun could peek through the stuffy clouds.

Alice yawned.

Her father cleared his throat sternly. "Now, you will be on your best behavior while you are here, understood?"

"Yes father," Alice mumbled sleepily.

"You will write to your mother every week, postmarked by the following Monday, and tell her what a wonderful time you are having whether or not you are having it. Understood?"

"Yes father," the young woman replied. It was an automated response from years of tortured lectures and scolding with a wooden paddle. She dared not to look up into her father's ruthless steel eyes, and instead trained them on her own scuffed black shoes.

Finally, her father rang the doorbell. It echoed into the house like an ominous demonic rattle, quaking the dust bunnies from their furniture hideaways. Father and daughter stood in morose silence.

Then finally, "Alice?" a crack in his stern baritone. A waver.

It made her look into her father's overcast eyes. "Yes father?"

"I…" but Alice's father was a lawyer, and he wasn't used to warm and comforting words. "…Make sure you polish your shoes. I expect to be able to eat on them the next time I visit."

For the remainder of his life, that would be the warmest thing he would ever say to his youngest daughter, and sadly it would be his last.

The great mahogany doors opened to a tall and brittle woman, crow-like and gray. She examined the father and his daughter, and silently took Alice's suitcase from the doorstep. The graying crone nodded to the father, and the father nodded back. Silent yet stern. Then the woman sank into the darkness, and expected Alice to follow.

He squeezed Alice's shoulder, turned on his shining black loafers, and retreated to the black carriage awaiting him. Alice heard the carriage door open, then shut, and the clop of hooves as it rode away. A cold, dark lonesome ate at her stomach like a great gobbler and left her insides cold.

"Follow me, dearie," the old crone's voice, withered until it ground like two stones together, drifted from the dark hallway beyond.

_It'll be OK, Alice. Go on._

Hesitantly, she stepped into the yawning white door, and followed the Madame down a sleepy hallway filled with dour-faced men.

* * *

_Continue? Or No?_


	3. Chapter Two

Thank you everyone for the amazing reviews! Sorry for the delay -- life decided to rear its tyrannical head for a moment, but I beat it down with a toaster so I should be good for at least a few days! Ah, this story just gives me the pricklies to write it. I'm always so stoked to write the next chapter!

Hmmm, I wonder what it would really be like to live at the Marionette's School for Proper Young Ladies? Well, Alice is about to find out, I reckon!

Enjoy!

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**Chapter 2**  
A Bert in the Attic

It was sometime later, after she had been introduced to the old crone whose name was Madame Gazelle, and who was the Headmistress of the Marionette School for Proper Young Ladies, before she was allowed into her room. It was a small room with peeling and faded flowery wallpaper and two single rusty golden-framed beds. There was a dressing table that leaned exhaustedly against the wall, cluttered with makeup and powder and the waxy butts of expired candles. A layer of fine dust sheltered the mirror until Alice could only find her blurred golden-haired blob in it. The mirror glowed in the rainy London morning moreso than she would have ever expected, and for a moment she was curious.

But curiosity killed the cat.

She dragged her suitcase to the vacant bed, and heard the door close behind her. Her roommate was still fast asleep in the early morning hours of Monday, big and round and swollen in such a small bed. Tuffs of red hair poked out like woven dreads. Rosy lipstick smeared her pillow. She snored too.

Alice sighed, and delicately tiptoed over to the large window between the beds, and looked out onto the vacant street, still snuggled tightly into misty arms.

_Don't be frightened, Alice.  
_

"I'm not frightened," she told herself sternly. "This will just be another adventure. A _new_ adventure."

She placed her fingertips on the cold and foggy window, and wrote out a name. Two names. Three. So she wouldn't feel so lonely.

"I'm not scared of being alone anymore," she whispered to the window. To the names. Her breath blurred the letters, and slowly they began to fade. "But I should be, shouldn't I?"

"Who the hell are you talking to?"

Alice gasped and spun to her roommate, who still snored loudly on her side, fast asleep. She darted her eyes to the door, still closed. To the window. To the street below. Nothing. No one. "Hello?" she offered softly.

"Jeez, George was right! These girls _are_ loony and blind!"

Then Alice looked up. She gasped. Because there, in her ceiling, was a copper-headed boy poking his head out of a hole that led to the attic. She could've sworn it was covered up seconds before! "How did you get up there?" she hissed and darted her eyes to her plump roommate. "You'll get in trouble!"

"Oh pish posh!" scoffed the young man. "I do this all the time. Name's Bert, by the way. Bert Chagney." He squeezed his arm through the hole too and offered it down to her. It was covered in grime and soot. Alice winced. "What? Is a grimy chimney sweep not good enough for you?"

"Oh no, it's just…" and she held up her perfectly clean hands. "I'll need a good explanation as to why my hands are all sooty at dinner."

"You look like the type of lass to think up a good lie."

"The best!" she chirped, then quickly slapped her hands over her mouth, afraid she had been too loud. They both glanced at the slumbering whale of a roommate, who gave another loud snore. After a moment, Alice laughed.

So did Bert.

Not even a freight train would wake the slumbering giant.

"You never told me your name, pretty lass."

"Alice," she replied and reached up her hand. "Alice Pleasance."

They shook.

"New here?"

"How'd you guess?" she asked in sarcastic astonishment, giving a wide-eyed blink.

He smirked smugly. "Just a chum's intuition, Miss Alice."

Again, he made Alice laugh.

_Twice in one day! He's getting good at this, my friend!_

_Oh Gobblygook! He's just lucky! _

Finally, Bert tipped his black tam and said with a smudge-cheeked smile, "Well, cheerio. I have to finish these buggers before Madam Gazzy calls the coppers. Corrupting the youth and everything. You know how that goes, right Miss Alice?"

"Oh yes," Alice replied seriously. "It's quite difficult to find honorable gentlemen these days."

"Quite, Miss Alice. There's never enough time anymore."

So Alice's newfound friend disappeared into his rabbit hole. He covered the hole up with a piece of wood painted the color of the ceiling, and was gone. She tried to crane her ears to listen for him, to hear him thumping away, but all was silent except for the window-rattling snores of her roommate. "Mr. Bert Chagney," she whispered his name on her soft rose lips, and finally managed to smile in the gloom that was the Marionette School for Proper Young Ladies.

In that moment, if she would have just turned around, she would have spied a dear old friend, his fingers tracing his name she had written on the glass, before he checked his watch and faded oh so dismally into the mist and drizzle of 437 Victry Street.

It was in those next few months that the world spun so fast it almost flew off it's axis. Months of endless whispers and gossip and sleepless snoring nights. Of hollowed teachers and opulent hidings. Of study halls and dreary library visits. Proper etiquette and recital halls.

The other girls of Marionette's didn't approve of Alice right away. She was strange, and poor, and friendless, and she would much rather spend her days out in the wilted garden sitting on a cold stone bench, book in hand, than inside gossiping near the warm and cozy fire. Her only friend was secretive, and only surprised her at night, or in the garden.

She wrote to her mother like she was supposed to, most of it soulless drabble. But every once in a while her mother would happen upon a letter filled with smudgy mistakes and glorified adjectives, and sheer pleasantries.

There was one in particular her mother would have enjoyed.

Other than that, Alice led a life of a normal teenaged young woman, growing beautiful and proper, like a marionette on strings. Like an actor in a play. She played her part, and acted the way they told her to, and said what she must.

But there were sparse times, in the dead of night, when she would sit up and bed and close her eyes, and remember those afternoons.

Those glorious golden afternoons, once upon a time.

**- - -**

_Dear Mother,  
_

_ I find the Marionette School a bit more tolerable now that I have a friend. We talk a lot, mostly out in the garden -- oh Mother, the garden is wonderful! In the summer, I suspect it will be blooming with lilies and wildflowers and rose bushes and even bluebells! My friend says that we'll begin planting some soon. Maybe we can brighten the garden a little. When you come to visit this June, maybe it will be done! I hope so. He tells me to be patient, but I hate the gloom. There is so much dark here... I don't understand how many of the other girls tolerate it. It's depressing -- as is their library! _

_I've never seen such a depleted and obsolete selection of books ever! Although my friend brings me these wonderful stories. I do not know where he gets them, but they satisfy me. One in particular is about a cunning Walrus and a family of little clams. Another about a talking griffin. And one about a magical looking glass. Oh, Mother, you'd love them!_

_There are pots of roses on the rooftop next door. I don't know what color they are yet, but my roommate says they are white, and that the mistress of the house wanted red. Such peculiar people!_

_ My classes are going well. I really do not like Mathematics all that much. It is a boring subject, and the teacher is very drab. I miss Nana teaching me sometimes, but I suppose I have a better education here. You should see how Mademoiselle Resenbulb waddles! Like a walrus! You would laugh, I promise. We do._

_ There is Latin, and French, and Etiquette. I failed most of Etiquette when I first began. Forks are forks to me, Mother. Why does everyone stress about the forks? Oh Mother, I don't understand...  
_

_ English is my favorite. We are studying King Arthur from Sir Alfred Lloyd Tennyson. It's all right, but I do not believe Lancelot was as handsome as Sir Tennyson says. I prefer Bediviere, actually.  
_

_ I miss you, Mother. Please write back soon. I haven't been receiving letters from you as of late, so I expect Madam Gazelle is hording them in her office, or they have gotten lost in the mail. I hope not. Please, I implore you to write back soon! Enclosed is another address my friend said might serve better. Please try mailing them next to this address.  
_

_ Please be safe, and tell Father I said hello. Diana too. I'm sure she misses me an awful lot._

_Your Daughter,  
Alice  
_

_P.S. Oh, and there is a field trip to London soon. Many of the girls are meeting up with their parents for an evening. Do you think you and Father could make it? Thank you!_

* * *

Continue or No?

* * *


	4. Chapter Three

* * *

Ah, chapter three! Thank you all for the wonderful reviews! The chapters just feel like they're getting shorter and shorter though... eh. It's about to get fairly interesting, so at least I'm not boring you through mindless chatter!

Um, this chapter has a fairly close tie-in to Disney's _Alice in Wonderland_.

Enjoy!

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**Chapter 3  
**_Laughing the Roses Red_

"Oh drat!" Erin Mahogany cried when her shaking hands splotched over another messily painted nail. In the week following Alice's arrival, she had grown to like Erin Mahogany -- her roommate -- very much despite her size and sleeping habits. They weren't friends, technically, and only spoke to each other in the privacy of their own bedroom. "Acquaintances," Bert queued to Alice on the third day of Alice's arrival at Marionettes. "You two are _acquaintances_."

It amazed her how much Bert knew -- about everything, really. From words to books to mathematics, and even history. He was a walking tome of knowledge, and he cleaned chimneys for a living.

"Alice?" Erin craned her neck over rolls of fat to spy Alice, contently curled in the corner of her bed with a book in her lap. "Alice?"

The golden-headed young woman raised her head and blinked herself into the room again. For a moment she could have sworn she was at sea, the wind in the sails and the waves exploding against the underbelly of a black pirate ship. Hesitantly, she closed the book. "Yes?"

"Will you please help me? I shan't go to the dinner tonight looking like this!" She waved her fat hand, colored almost completely orange, at her roommate. "Oh, woe is me! If only I had Cecilla here to do this for me! Mother wouldn't let me bring her, you know. She said I had to learn on my own."

Cecilla, as Alice soon found out on the first day at Marionette's, was Erin's favorite subject -- both conversation and person-wise. Days were filled with constant chatter about Cecilla and how delicious her scones were on hot summer days, and how beautiful she could fix Erin's hair until even the Queen of Sheba glowered with envy. Erin told everyone her life story at least twice a day, most of it involving her caregiver Cecilla. Alice, on the other hand, kept to herself and chose not to talk about her summers, and those glorious golden afternoons.

"What color do you want them?" Alice asked, making her way over to Erin. She set her book down on the end of the dresser and picked up the vibrant orange. "This color?"

"Well, I don't know anymore! The color is _so_ loud…"

"Then we shan't choose this one," and Alice separated it from the dozen other vibrant colors. "What color is your dress tonight?"

Tonight. She gulped at the thought. Tonight she'd get to see her parents again. Her heart fluttered with joy, but then sank again when she realized why she read instead of primped for the night. She had nothing to wear.

"A very beautiful white," Erin fluttered her hands. "Almost angelic, Cecilla said! I, of course, think it looks more like snow than angels, but--"

Ignoring her roommate's explanation of the color of her dress, Alice ran her fingers along the pretty colored bottles, and stopped, hovering over a single vial. Her eyes widened.

_Ooh, this calls for a song, my good friend!_

"This one," she said breathlessly.

"Well, I don't --"

_Painting the roses --_

"_Red_," Alice grabbed her outstretched hand and began her work. Each fingernail she covered in a vivid and flushing red -- rose red, so deep it looked like blood, and yet so beautiful it reminded her the evening sunset glow. She migrated from one hand to the other, the song faint and bubbly in her ear, as if the wind whispered it.

_We're painting the roses red!_

"Do you hear that, Alice?"

_We dare not stop!_

_Or waist a drop!_

"Dear me, the chimney sweeps must be at it again, those buggers!"

And unbeknownst to even dear old Alice, she was humming along as well.

_So let the paint be spread!_

"Alice? Are you listening?"

_Oooh, painting the roses red!_

"Alice! Stop it!"

_And many a tear we shed!_

"ALICE!"

With a gasp, the golden-haired young woman jumped in her seat beside Erin, and covered her mouth with embarrassment. "Dear me, was I singing?"

"Good gracious, you're not the only one you stupid girl! _Listen_!"

_Because we know--_

And so Alice listened.

_"They'll cease to grow!"_

Her eyes grew wide. "Oh dear. I _do_ hear it!"

"Well aren't we both glad of that!" Erin fanned herself furiously. "Go and shut them up, will you? They are ruining my preparation!"

Alice was already far ahead of her roommate's instructions for she had already flung open the windows to the bright and lukewarm day. Victry Street was dotted with fast little men in black suits, ladies with lace umbrellas, and two simpleminded chimney sweeps on the opposite rooftop, cigars hanging from their mouths, as they danced among the potted roses and ferns. Grayish smoke belched from their lips as they laughed and swung around each other, paintbrushes in each hand. For a moment, Alice gaped.

"In fact they'll soon be dead!" cried a third voice as he joined their ramparts. He popped up from the chimney with another bucket of paint. "Mrs. Shire'll love these, mates! Cans to pass around! Quick, we ain't got much time Neil!"

"Always about time with you, ain't it?" said the partially smudgy brunette named Neil. He was the shortest, but also the quickest. To Alice, she suddenly fancied him with long brown ears and a pink twitchy nose and a cotton tail. "Time, time, time! Oh for God's sake Bert, put your pocket watch up and let's finish the job!"

"_And yet we go ahead byyyyy_--" the last boy sang, slopping a glob of red onto the nearest yellow rose. He was taller than either Bert or Neil, and the way he moved was maddeningly lanky, as if his bones were made of slinkies, always swaying and moving.

Neil grabbed the paint can, uncapped it, and swung around to steal the holey top hat from the tallest boy's head.

"HEY!" he shouted. "Give that back, you rotten thief!"

Bert hopped out of the chimney and plucked the hat from Neil's hand, and sat it on top of his own head. "_Painting the roses--_"

The tallest grabbed his hat as Neil sloshed the whole can onto the flowers.

"--_RED_!" they shouted in chorus, and laughed themselves silly.

Alice pressed her hands to her mouth to keep herself composed, her sides shuddering for a good laugh too. She sat sideways on the bed, and tried not to loose it. Oh, how it felt so good to laugh. As if her body yearned to abandon the strict molds of marrionettes and just be itself again. To just be Alice. And laugh. But she knew that if she dare tried to laugh and smile, then there would be consequences. Proper young ladies did not laugh, after all, and neither should she.

"So will you finish painting my nails red?" Erin asked, and was overly annoyed to see Alice suddenly crumple into a ball and fall to the floor in hysterics.

_A laugh, a laugh, our kingdom for a laugh!_

_Victory is ours!_

In a fit, Erin puffed out her pillow-like cheeks and proclaimed loud enough for Alice to hear over her fit of giggles, "Cecilla would never paint them red!"

* * *

Ah, victory is sweet!

That was a cute little chapter...


	5. Chapter Four

Ahoy there! Phew, this chapter was a tough little cookie. I wasn't sure how I was going to go about it... but I managed! For some odd reason, I have a certain affinity for Madam Gazelle. She might be old and withered and a crone, but she's good at what she does.

Enjoy! And, alas! The plot moves!

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Chapter 4  
_A Dress for Your Occasion  
_

The thirty-two girls who attended the Marionette School for Proper Young Ladies lined up in their gala finest on the curbside, thirteen black carriages awaiting them with sober footmen and midnight mares. The majority of the young women twittered like finches in peer groups, giggling and wiping smudges of mascara from each other's faces with lily-white handkerchiefs.

Alice watched from the doorway, and fisted her hands. Unlike her colorful classmates, she still wore her drab school uniform that was in bad need of an iron. The gray pleats were skewed, and her white blouse looked like it had been wadded up for days behind a toilet. (Her blouse would not have been in such utter disrepair if Bert hadn't insisted on gardening that morning.) It embarrassed her to think that she'd see her parents for the first time in three months looking like a street urchin.

"It's not like I can afford anything else," she muttered bitterly. The only other good dress she owned was black, and only worn to funerals. She had never worn it before.

"Do you not have a single acceptable dress to wear?" snapped the shrill grindstone voice of Madam Gazelle. She surfaced from the darkness of the house into the doorway, her pointed chin set in disapproval. She examined Alice with hawk-like eyes. "If you are to wear that, you will not ride in my carriages."

"I have nothing else to wear, Madam," Alice curtsied politely, her head bent so the crone could not see her bottom lip wobble.

Madam Gazelle gave an indignant sniff. "Do you not sow?"

"I do."

"Own cloth?"

"A bit."

"Then why didn't you make yourself a dress? You've had ample time, Miss Pleasance. Many of the girls here did. Miss Hummington is one of the many impeccable examples!" She nodded to a particular young woman who laughed with a flock of water-colored girls surrounding her. (She was only one who managed to sew her own, actually.) Her dress was the color of moonlight, and it looked quite odd against the ravishing pastel blues and greens that surrounded her. It shimmered too much, as if there were bubbles trapped inside the thin thread. Her hair was curled into ringlets, her face powdered to perfection. She was easily the most beautiful girl at the Marionette's School for Proper Young Ladies, and reminded Alice of a mouse. Often, Lorane Hummington was seen sipping tea out of fascinating Japanese cups alone in the tea room. As if she could feel Alice's envy, Lorane turned her gaze to the natty blonde.

_Well, the dormouse overdid it a bit._

_At least she's not drunk._

_Oh good heavens! She only drinks tea!_

_It's what she puts _in_ the tea, dear fellow._

Lorane Hummington smiled and gave a brief nod. Astonished, Alice gave a quick curtsy in return. Lorane had never paid much attention to Alice. In fact, no one did.

Madam Gazelle beamed with approval. "Ah, such a ravishing young woman! It would do you good if you learned from her, Miss Pleasance."

"Yes Madam," she muttered in return.

The old crone grabbed her sharply by the elbow and escorted her down the steps onto the pavement. Instinctively, most of the girls took a step away, and the giggles turned into a lower murmur. Alice's ears felt hot.

"Ladies!" Madam Gazelle called. Every primped and proper face turned to their headmistress, their chins raised high and their lush pink lips set into a perfect line. They looked like marionettes hanging on invisible strings. Frightfully, Alice shrank into herself. "Miss Alice Pleasance does not have a proper dress to wear. This is troublesome."

Not a single face shifted.

"Would any of you proper young ladies care to lend her a dress?"

Hesitation shuffled through the crowd. A horse neighed, and trotted impatiently in place.

"If not," Madam Gazelle continued, "she will not be allowed to go."

Alice gasped. "Oh no, Madam! Please, my parents expect me there! Surely if they knew that I had to dress for the occasion they would have sent--"

"Anyone?" the crone ignored her, and dug her sharp nails into Alice's elbow to quiet her.

A stoic disapproval swept through the crowd. It finally occurred to Alice that none of them would help, not even her roommate Erin who she had been good to. Helplessly, she turned to Erin with pleading eyes, but Erin didn't meet them, and instead stared at her hands clutching an off-white purse. Alice looked about with wild, wet eyes, and realized that not a single girl met her gaze. A churn of hopelessness filled her stomach.

It reminded her of black rain.

_Poor Alice.  
_

_Poor foolish Alice._

_No_, it was a new voice, _poor foolish us._

"I will lend her a dress."

Alice's tear-filled eyes searched the crowd.

Lorane Hummington lifted her silvery dress and stepped out from the crowd. She gave her a reassuring smile. "I will lend her a dress," she repeated.

Alice could feel Madam Gazelle's disappointment through the nails that bit into her elbow. She let go, and sniffed indignantly. "Then do hurry, Miss Hummington. The carriage leaves in ten minutes. With or without you both."

"Thank you, Madam," Lorane curtsied and took Alice by the wrist, and hurried inside. She pulled Alice along three flights of stairs to a beautiful floral room with mirrors covering the largest wall, and a delicate Japanese china set placed as a centerpiece for the room. It was very red and oriental in nature, as was the wardrobe that Lorane searched through. She pulled out a dark navy dress and presented it to Alice. "It's not my best, but it should fit you."  
Alice took the dress in awe. It was plain, with a single satin ribbon and lace on the sleeves and neckline, but much more beautiful than anything Alice owned. When it moved, it rustled and whooshed like the ocean. "Why?" she asked breathlessly.

Lorane gave a tale-tell smile. "Because I can."

The dress was an almost perfect fit, and it felt like satin against her skin. Alice beamed a beautifully white smile to her newfound friend, who seemed to glow with pleasure.

_She's beautiful, isn't she?_

_Yes._ There was a considerate pause. _Yes, she is._

They arrived back at the carriages just as Madame Gazelle told her chauffer to pull away, and they only mildly winced when she glared ferocious daggers over half-moon spectacles. Lorane moved up to sit beside Alice in the last carriage, crammed with three other girls with low social standing (in ratty hand-me-down dresses with yellowing lace and unpolished shoes).

"Did you see the Madame?" Lorane giggled. When she scrunched her nose and laughed, she did look like a mouse.

"I daresay you'll be on her naughty list because of it…" Alice replied unsurely. She didn't want to get her new friend in any trouble. Especially if it would be because of her.

"Oh, nonsense!" the bruentte scoffed and flourishingly waved her hand. "Who gives a rat's ass about what the Madame thinks? -- excuse my language. She is quite the crone, and I doubt she will be getting much of anything from me at Christmastime."

That made Alice giggle too. "Not even coals?"

"To roast us poor girls? Heavens no! She has enough fun with her whip and cane!"

"Lorane!"

"It's true!"

Low murmuring twitters rushed across the slowly rocking carriage. The three girls on the other side huddled together in low whispers, their beady eyes gleaming dark and disapproving.

Alice gave them a level look and buried her lips into Lorane's ear to whisper, "Please watch what you say, Lorane. The Madam's got ears everywhere! She'll hear you!"

"Please. She isn't that liked, is she?" She raised her chin and gave the three opposite girls a disapproving look. "Even by those girls?"

For a moment, the angel-headed young woman was silent. Considerate. At first glance, the trio of lanky girls snuggled opposite of them looked like moles, shy and longing for dark warm places. But when she narrowed her eyes -- when she looked deep, deep down, more into her own eyeballs than into the picture of three moles sunken into the leather upholstery, colors began to dance. Things began to happen -- thoughts and ideas and schemes and colors. So many bright and wonderful colors that she had lost, almost forgotten, after the golden afternoons.

She saw it for only a blink. A second that stole thoughts into her head and hid them in the darkest recesses of her eyes.

_Hatter… did she…_

_Yes, my good friend. She did._

Alice darted her eyes to Lorane again, and with a Cheshire smile said, "Especially those girls. They've got her ears in their pockets, her eyes in their hands, and her heart in their shoes. Can't you hear it? _Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump._"

"Maybe if we're lucky it'll stop beating."

"Oh it has! Them walking keeps it going."

Lorane gave a flittering laugh. "You are quite imaginative, Alice Pleasance."

In return she smiled, and remembered the fleeting beams of color burned into the corners of her eyes.

* * *

Alice made a friend! Or has she had friends all along?

_Continue or No?_

* * *


	6. Chapter Five

Hi everyone! I hope I haven't kept you too long... college has been a complete drag, and I've been swamped with paper after paper. Who knew Film Studies would be so many essays?

I hope this chapter doesn't come as too much of a surprise to you... it's been rearing it's ugly head ever since Chapter 2, really. This chapter was particularly hard to write. I didn't know what I wanted to do with it -- I knew I wanted to go somewhere with it, so here it is! This is somewhere, and I hope you adore Reggi as much as I do.

And yes, the name is taken out of the countless other fics who have named him Reginald. It fits well, so who am I to fix what isn't broken?

Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 5  
_The Two Instances of Reginald Hatter  
_

That evening, the rain was black.

The sky was a pallid blue, clogged with pores of dark gluttonous clouds that stretched across the horizon like black tape. Lightning skipped across the clouds like pebbles, rumbles of thunder shaking the earth beneath the sodden carriage like the splashes of a puddle. It was a damp night, with inky black raindrops splattering against the small carriage windows.

The carriage was buried in the mud, strewn sideways like a toy. The wheels were splintered, the door waving open in ominous abandonment.

Wife and Husband lay tossed into the dark mud, their limbs bent like ragdolls, their hands intertwined like lovers. A golden locket hung around the woman's tiny neck, and opened to a picture of golden afternoons.**_  
_**

**_--_**

The Mad Hatter gazed unseeing sooty ceiling, his fingers curled around a soft cotton blanket. "Alice?" he muttered, and furrowed his eyebrows. "Alice imagined?"

_Take it easy, my friend, _came the Hare's voice.

The figment couldn't tell if it was nighttime or day by the looks of the ceiling, but he made a good guesstimation that it was close to morning by the weary, lead feeling settled into his bones. Which was funny because never remembered being tired -- with the exception of that one time he and the March Hare had a little too much to drink. But it was a genuine birthday, and they felt the need to celebrate Alice's fourteenth year with a round of gin that would put hair on the girliest man's chest.

He closed his eyes again and wanted to go back to sleep. His mind was so foggy and full, like a soggy cloth that had been sitting by the river a bit too long. Then came the Hare's gasp, which caused him some alarm.

_Go to sleep._

_Oh Lords, Hatter! What has she done?!_

_Who has done what?_

He rolled over onto his side, and felt every muscle inside him ache as if he had been squeezed down a particularly nasty chimney and smoked back out of it again. He vaguely remembered something of the sort, but he knew he didn't clean chimneys, and the only smoking he'd done was to a particularly unhealthy Cuban cigar.

_Don't move,_ the March Hare advised cautiously. _I think it'd be better if you just went back to sleep, maybe..._

_Sleep? _scoffed another voice -- the Dormouse? What was she doing in his head? _Hatter, get up!_

So the poor Mad Hatter cracked one eyelid open, and became quickly confused.

_Hatter--_

"Where the bloody hell am I?" he sputtered, wrenching up in his bed.

The room was mostly dark, with the shallow cast of a stormy bourbon-colored sky and the white-hot flitter of lightning crashing and melting into the damp night. Well, he was wrong about the time, although he still felt sure he had been smoked out of something -- and God forbid it be a chimney! There were only two windows in the room, and close to ten beds scrunched together like sardines. Pants and shoes and shirts and hats, grimy and black with soot, lay stranded across the room. Even the walls were sooty with hand prints and feet prints and a particularly big body print on one wall, and everything smell liked smoke. He smelt like smoke.

Like a chimney, actually.

_Only the White Rabbit smokes us out of chimneys, my friend,_ came the dear voice of his best friend, trying to thrust calm into the situation. _Alice has…something's wrong, old chap._

"Wrong?" he whispered.

Boldly, he tried to sit up, but his stomach muscles convulsed and he flopped back into his hard pillow, and gave a low moan. Whatever happened to his feather pillow? He had just fluffed it the night befo -- wait.

_The night before what, exactly?_ came the hare's wry reply.

Black rain jogged his memory and filled him with rampant fear.

"We told you not to go down that chimney," sniffed a young tenor.

The Mad Hatter jumped in fright. "Holy bloody Hell!"

_Language, Mr. Mad Hatter,_ tutted the Dormouse motherly, but the Hatter paid no heed to the dimming voices inside his head.

Slowly, he faced the tangible voice with a wide, unscrupulous stare. He was quite sure he wasn't harboring children in his small little cottage, and was quite sure this wasn't his cottage at all. It was all very confusing, and yet at the same time he understood all of it as if…

…As if he were imagining it.

There was a young boy beside him with earthy eyes and brown hair, and he twitched ever-so-often as if he was wound up so tight that the law of physics refused him to sit still. His knee bounced with his heel that made a soft _thump-thump-thump_ staccato on the wooden floor. "You're getting too big for this job, you know."

"…Job?" the Mad Hatter asked himself hoarsely. The last he remembered, he didn't have a job.

"Um, you o'right there?"

"I… job?" he tried to sit up again, and failed miserably. He flopped into his pillow face-first with a wince. "I don't remember any excessive labor…" he mouthed around the pillow.

The young boy just sighed and rolled his eyes. "O'right, well when you stop pretending do give me a ring. Miss Pross's got some warm soup-stuff for you and some tea."

"Tea?" asked the Mad Hatter eagerly, popping up having forgotten about his pain.

"Yeah, tea."

"Oh, that would be delightful!" He gave a sunny smile to the young boy, who quirked an eyebrow. The little lad was quite sooty, and suddenly the Mad Hatter didn't like the idea of him bringing tea at all

The boy sighed, "Whatever. I'll be right back, OK?"

"Um -- wait. Sorry, old chap… but a question for a fool?"

The boy spun around and gave him a level look. "What?"

"Your name?"

"God," he sighed. "The things I play along with." He stood and scuffed the foot of his shoe on the dirty floor. He couldn't have been any older than Alice, but his face wasn't nearly as innocent. The Mad Hatter found himself feeling sorry for the lad. "Name's Neil. You know it. I know it. You're my best pal. I'm yours. We painted Professor Loveless' roses together before you had to get stuck down a chimney. Jog that mutton of a brain yet? 'Member? Bert smoked you out."

Bert? Neil?

_Why do they sound familiar, Hare?_

But the March Hare was so dim in the back of his mind that he couldn't understand the reply. That felt wrong, somehow. This whole dream felt wrong -- as if it wasn't a dream at all, and he really was smoked out of a chimney. "Um, and old chap…"

Neil rolled his eyes. "Do you want tea or not?"

"I do!"

"Then, Reginald, SHUT UP." Then Neil turned, gave a prissy flip of his hair, and slammed the door on his way out.

The name threw a punch into the Mad Hatter's stomach and made him gasp as if he'd just been hit with a ten-pound bag of flour. _Oh, that's how I know those names!_ Scrambling to sit up, he clawed at the sooty blankets and looked around for a mirror. One reflected London in the far corner of the room, opposite of a lonely window. Body complaining, he rustled to the mirror, unable to realize how he hadn't before noticed that his hands weren't his, and that his voice was younger, and that no amount of exercise would ever hinder him in Wonderland.

In the mirror, the Mad Hatter did not stare back. Only a boy -- a young man about a year or two older than Alice -- with a light streak of messy straw-colored hair, and slight bristle on his chin. He was sooty like Neil, and had a good-sized chunk of his left ear missing, as if something had been shot through it. _Due respects_, his mind quoted without reason, the defining sound of a gunshot suddenly fresh in his memory although it had been ages ago. The boy was rather tall, and he wore an expression of utter disbelief. One the Hatter would have worn at that exact isntant too. And when the Hatter frowned, so did this alienated reflection.

"Me?" the Hatter mumbled, and the reflection mumbled too.

There was no familiar nose. No bushy eyebrows or laughter lines. Only his eyes reassured him that he was still he -- familiar and glowing and quite cornflower blue. His eyes.

Eyes that also belonged to this young man.

"Oh Alice…" his voice quivered, "what have you done?"

In his ears rang Alice's lithe laughter, innocent and sweet and soon to sour. It buzzed in his head like a drug, and he clutched his head as the world spun. His stomach heaved. For a moment, there was a hazy smattering of a carriage strewn to the side of the road, and two pale corpses, one with dark marble eyes, the other with hair as golden as the summer afternoon.

Then poor, poor Alice, sitting at a table for three, her head bent into her lap. Alone.

_Oh no_. He trembled.

_You have to find Alice -- quickly!_

_But I --_

"Oi! Reggi! Tea's here!" the young boy barged in with a chipped floral teacup balanced in a sooty hand.

The world twisted, and filled with soot, and the Mad Hatter imagined no more.

_Who's Alice?_

Reginald gave a start and spun to his friend. "Neil?" Confused, he looked around. Last he remembered, he had been stuck in a chimney and Bert had tried to smoke him out. His lungs felt like they had two pounds of soot in them, and they hurt when he breathed. "Um, say… how did I get here?"

"You walked, Reggi."

"I know… but why am I standing here?"

"Jesus," Neil rolled his eyes again, "just come drink your tea and shut up. I'm going to go buy me a piece of candy with the loot we earned." The short boy spun around on his sooty heels and marched out the door.

For a moment, Reginald stood silently. His eyes slowly gazed at the steaming cup of honey-colored tea. It looked good, and made the room smell like sweet fair things he might have once known, once upon a time.

_Once Upon a Golden Afternoon, my friend._

"I don't even like tea," he protested finally.

Somewhere in the faintest part of his mind, a little part of him gave an anguished cry of despair.

* * *

So why did Bert try to SMOKE him out of all things? Well, he might not be the brightest bulb in the light fixture, but he has his reason. Old habit maybe?

_Continue or No?_

* * *


	7. Chapter Six

Well, I really don't have an excuse for not updating this for the better half of a decade...but have no fear! It is here! This chapter's been sitting, motheaten, on my computer for a while, because it was one of the first scenes I actually wrote for _Golden Afternoons_. It's kinda what inspired everything, you know? So here it is, the birth of an idea... Here's a hankie for ye.

And on the off-note, I really do like Bert. A lot. He fills me with warm fuzziness every time I write him. So forgive me for being partial to an chimney sweep!

* * *

Chapter 6  
_The Hounds and the Chase_

Alice bade Lorane goodbye as she went to sit at her assigned table. The dinner party was beautiful—candles lit the tables, and three great chandeliers reflected the lukewarm light in their crystals like icicles at dusk. She made her way around the rows of round tables to number twenty-seven. It was in the middle of the ballroom, surrounded by all the other girls at the Marionette's school. Most of their parents were already there, and the girls raced to their fathers and mothers with outstretched arms. There was laughing, and hugging, and crying. Mothers dabbed at their daughters' tear-streaked faces before dabbing their own, and Fathers kissed their children on the cheek and gave them loving noogies.

Alice watched, enraptured. So much good was welling up in the small ballroom. So much laughter and smiles and cheer that she couldn't help but to smile herself. She sat down in one of the three empty chairs at her table—the middle one—and waited patiently for her happiness too.

Her mother had said they'd be there.

Her mother had promised, and had written that they were looking forward to it.

For once, Alice was finally excited to see her father. She wanted to grapple him around the neck and never let go. She wanted to bury her head into her mother's bosom like she did when she was little and smell her perfumes of honey and lavender.

She waited patiently with her hands in her lap.

Waiters were ushered out. They took orders, and disappeared again. They didn't stop by her table.

As the dinner dragged on, Alice began to squirm. She looked over her shoulder, and in the corner of the room was Lorane. She was sitting alone too, but then again Lorane's parents were never fond of her.

"Of course they won't come," Lorane had told Alice on the carriage ride. "They have more important things to do or something… it's always an excuse with them, you know."

"My parents are coming," Alice had told her gleefully. "Mother's excited. She wrote that she wanted to give me a present when she comes! I wonder what it is?"

Lorane smiled. "A new dress, perhaps?"

They laughed.

But now Alice wasn't laughing. She was twirling her fork on the table; her shoulders slumped, thinking that they had forgotten about her, too.

Halfway through the main course, there was finally movement at the door. Alice perked—they must have finally arrived! Now that she thought about it, her father did have a knack for always being absentminded and tardy. "He must have just forgotten," she told herself promptly, and quickly put her fork into the rolled napkin again. Her hands shook with excitement.

_Oh Alice…  
_

_Oh poor innocent Alice.  
_

_What can we do, Hatter?  
_

_I do not know, my friend.  
_

_We have to do something!  
_

_She's not in Wonderland anymore, Rabbit.  
_

The door opened to the constable. He was rain-soaked, and dower. Fear replaced excitement, and she sought to control it. Madame Gazelle hurried to the constable's side, and they went out of the dining room.

Alice—even in her innocence—knew that deep down, something terrible was tumbling down on her.

_I won't let her go through this alone!  
_

_What choice do we have, Rabbit?  
_

_Hatter, she is just a child!  
_

_She's a young lady. Even you yourself agreed that it's high time that she wakes up and smells the daisies.  
_

_B-B-But—But—!_

The constable came back in with Madam Gazelle. She pointed at Alice.

All of a sudden, the pillars broke. Everything came tumbling down like an avalanche—fear, hope, excitement, and heartbreak. It came down like hail and washed through her like black rain.

A ringing in her ears, above the crumbling, crumbling world and the soft whispers of black rain came—so familiar and warm and welcoming, reminiscent of golden afternoons slipping through her fingers like sand.

_Then I will grow up with her._

She tilted her head back and gulped down the sob lodged in her throat, and blinked away the tears brimming in her cloudless blue eyes. She forced her weakness back. She pursed her lips and kept her world steady. She kept herself afloat—barely breathing.

_I am here for you, Alice._

One voice in the gloom—strengthening, fleshing, becoming whole and hope. Like the colors that used to flitter in the corners of her eyes.

_We are here, Alice._

More voices to help stop the tears. To steel her and make her immune to heartbreak, to tie her heart together with red fate-string and keep it together just long enough for it to heal.

They were voice against death.

Against disaster and loss.

Against cold spring nights and snow-filled summers.

Against moonless skies.

Against rainless clouds.

Small voices, too insignificant before, finally being heard through the colors in the corners of her eyes. Promising—but failing, because they were not there with her when the constable arrived at her table. They were not there with her when he sat down and enveloped her tiny hands in his large ones and told her in a tender voice as if she was a delicate porcelain doll,

"Miss Pleasance, will you please come with me?"

The voices and their owners were not there to comfort her when she stood and followed the constable out of the dining hall, as the other young ladies watched and whispered, and each footstep cracking another part of her world. No one was there for poor Alice Pleasance when she took that step out of the door. Even Lorane stayed in the corner of the room, too helpless to move and too afraid to stray her eyes from her bowl of potato soup.

_Dormouse, what's wrong?  
_

_What can I do, Hatter? What could I possibly do?  
_

And Alice forgave her, because she knew she couldn't be saved from it. She knew that even though she had been stripped of her golden afternoons, that even when she had been forced to the Marionette school, she had not grown up. She had merely decided to put away the thoughts of golden afternoons for brighter days, but as she stepped out into the foyer, and heard the door close behind her, she knew that she would never love those golden afternoons ever again.

Young Alice had grown up by the time the constable knelt down to her again, and patted her shoulder comfortingly. She was not a child any longer, and the color would forever be trapped in the corners of her eyes, always there but never reachable.

And just like that, the voices—in all their childhood warmth and glory and presence—faded into the cold winter draft that blew through the foyer.

Alice stood against the constable alone, and was told in a deep and sorrowful voice that her parents would not be coming tonight.

"Yes they are," she whispered vehemently, and took a defiant step away from the constable. "They'll be here! Mother promised!"

The burly policeman set his jaw. He had thought she would accept it, but he'd seen other children who didn't. He came closer again and told her sternly, "Young miss, do not raise your voice."

"Raise my voice?" her voice was rising—thundering out of her throat like a tidal of hysteria. "I am not causing any trouble! I want my parents!"

"Miss, lower your voice."

"I may talk as loud as I very well please!"

He reached out to secure her shoulder. "Miss Pleasance—"

The young woman wrenched away from him, and gathered her dress in her hands. "My parents are dead and you are telling me not to mourn?" she screamed. "Are you even human?!"

When the constable opened his mouth to respond, Alice didn't let him. She bolted for the front door, and raced down the steps into the rain. She ran—she didn't know where she was going, or what she was going to do after she stopped, but she ran anyway. Through puddles and streams—drenching her leather boots and dampening her bloomers. Rain soaked her face, and her hair stuck to her face. The rain was cold and heavy, but she didn't care. She ran with all her might.

She ran from the hounds of death that pursued her, and would—when she would finally stop to catch her breath—finally catch her and gobble her up into their stomachs of despair.

She thought she could outrun the tears that burned in her eyes. She thought she could run back through time. But she couldn't, and when she did finally stop, it was back where she began—at the empty Marionette School for Young Ladies.

There was a clingy fog that began to droop over London. The hounds of death caught her through them, and indeed gobbled her up, and left her silent and alone on a vacant street.

Finally, she released the folds in her dress and slumped down on the front steps. The tears that burned in her eyes broke, and ran in crystal streams down her soaked face. She didn't cry quietly either.

"Young ladies do not show their feelings. They cry silently and delicately," Madam Gazelle had instructed when Alice had first arrived and the Madam had found her crying in a corner of her room. "Young ladies do not show emotions. We women are the pillars of mankind."

But Alice was far from a pillar. She was only girl—a small, quiet girl—and now an orphan.

So she cried aloud. She wailed and sobbed and wished she had someone to cry into. She sat on the steps and put her head back, and let the grief that cracked and crumbled her world take her.

And then, after eons in the cold lonesome rain, there were footsteps. There was a comfort who pressed her head into his chest and told her it was going to be OK.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Bert whispered.

Alice buried her head into his chest, her ear pressed against the ticking pocket watch in his coat—she had somehow always known it was there without ever having seen or heard it—and wrapped her arms around him. He let her finish crying. He let her go raw and tired, and he kissed her forehead when she had finally gone silent.

She looked up into his wet face. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Ah, from here and yonder, for sure," he said in good humor, but he knew what she really meant.

"No, I mean before…before…"

He set his chin on her head and rubbed her back soothingly. "You've known me all along, Mary-Anne."

In reply, she only tightened her hug around his waist, and listened to the watch tick, tick, tick to the steadiness of his heartbeat. Yes, she knew. She had known from the beginning.

The pair sat on the steps of the Marionette School for Young Ladies, draped in rain and fog and grief, until the lampposts were lit with bright orange flames, and the air crackled with clops of horses and carriages, and young girls returning from a wonderful night. Alice looked at the steady procession of carriages as they stopped at the streetside, and by then Bert had gone.

Madam Gazelle dismounted out of the first carriage, gathered the folds of her dark green dress in her hands, and clipped up to Alice Pleasance. "You found your way home," was the old crone's exact words. Not belittling, and not sneering. A fact.

Alice curtsied in reply.

"Heidi has a hot cup of tea for me every night. I will meet with you in my office after I have sent the other girls to bed. Understood?"

Alice silently nodded.

Madam Gazelle brushed past her, and ordered the young girls to quit doddling and hurry in out of the chill. She didn't say another word to Alice. But then again she didn't need to. She trailed in after the girls and their whispers, and was the last one inside.

_Hey, Mary-Anne._

She looked over her shoulder as she stopped in the doorway, and spied a shadow on the street. "White Rabbit," she whispered aloud, and it gave her some sort of silly reassurance. It gave her the strength to close the door behind her, and go into Madam Gazelle's office where a hot cup of tea waited. She helped herself to it with shaking hands, and sipped it as it brought life back into her shivering fingers and toes, and warmed the spot in her stomach that felt like cold lead.

"I'm not alone," she told the cup of tea. "I'm not alone."

* * *

And here is churning, turning, or ending point? Ah, who knows?


	8. Chapter Seven

I'm not quite sure what to make of this chapter as of yet. I was tempted—only for a second of insanity!—to end it at chapter 6. It was an ending of sorts, but I couldn't bring myself to. I mean, there's so much going for Alice here. What'll happen to her next? Where will her life lead her now that she has forsaken her childhood once and for all?

I couldn't just leave it hanging. Besides, I love Bert way to much to just kill him off as a side character! 3

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 7  
**_Heirlooms_

The burial plots were bought. The caskets were chosen, and the flower arrangements received. A sole black carriage with black horses rode through the streets with two mahogany caskets side by side. Madam Gazelle and Alice rode behind them in a smaller carriage, and other mourners followed them. A light haze of drizzle soaked London as it always did on cold March mornings. Sunlight soaked the clouds above, making the gray rain clouds glow bright and green. There was a particular chill to the air that morning that made Alice feel more alone than she actually was.  
After all, Madam Gazelle had softened just enough to make Alice dry her tears before the funeral. Or maybe Alice didn't have many tears left to spare, and so she decided to save them. Her eyes felt raw, and her lips wobbled, but she refused the urge with a stubborn dignity. _No, I won't cry today,_ she told herself.

Madam Gazelle reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a kerchief. Wrapped inside was a polished gold locket. "This was around your mother's neck," she said in her clipped, stoic voice. "I believe now it is yours. A heirloom."

Alice didn't even look at it. "It should still be around her neck."

"It wasn't fitting for her attire."

"It was hers."

"Now, it is yours."

Alice shook her head. "I don't want it."

"Alice, you are not a rotten child, so stop behaving as such. Take the locket, and thank me, you thankless dreg." Her voice felt so harsh, Alice couldn't help but to obey. So she took the locket and put it around her neck. "I would have pawned it, but a broken locket is of no use to anyone."

_Broken?_ Alice had seen her mother open it time and again in the drawing room, and so she tried to as well. She put her fingernails between the smooth oval folds of gold, and pressed._ It won't open?_ Puzzled, she tried again.

"I assume that it was damaged in the accident," came the Madam's voice.

The young woman dropped the locket and hid it underneath her black dress. It was the only one she rightfully owned, and it was the only one that fit just so. She felt the cold metal against her chest, and puffed out her chest to feel the indention of it.

Yes, it was there. It was hers now.

"Thank you, Madam Gazelle," she thanked quietly, and looked back out the carriage window.

The Madam replied, "Young women are supposed to take the gifts they receive, and be grateful. Now look sharp and proper, we are approaching the cemetery."

* * *

Reginald shoved the tea onto a nightstand and fell back onto his pillows. His head was abuzz like the time he had to clean the chimney of the opium den on River Street, but it was a raw buzz that made his temples throb, and his muscles ache. Like the buzz from too much whiskey on a cold night.

Something was pushing—something was screaming and clawing its way through his mind and memories and gray haze hysterically. It was rising like a bubble—a balloon—up and up like a sore until he could almost remember something—until he almost knew what was wrong.

"I should retire," he muttered to himself darkly. "Get a good family. Join an orphanage. Something productive."

_Oh, really?_ Asked the pinion of light that was rising, crescendo-ing, awakening.

"Yeah, really," he answered himself, massaging the bridge of his nose. Tiredly, he closed his eyes.

And gave a jolt.

Burned inside his eyelids, a sole golden-headed girl swamped in a dress as dark as shadows, stood in a throng of black-suited men in bowler hats and women in high-collared mourning dresses. A translucent black veil hung over her face from the bonnet clasped tight around her head-full of ringlets, but her eyes shone through like saltwater pools, too cold and raw to cry. Against the onset of the small gathered crowd, she glowed almost. She looked so much more important and fragile than the rest of the world who stood on the green, above freshly dug twin set of graves. The headstone, bright and freshly carved, read:

HERE LIES  
_Richard Pleasance_ AND HIS WIFE_ Lynn Pleasance  
_1824-1856 1832-1856

MAY GOD REJOICE FOR THEIR RETURN  
INTO HIS HOLY HANDS

Reginald felt funny. He felt awful—dour and bleak and horrible, like a piece of his chest had been ripped away, to see this beautiful young woman so raw and frozen in the cold. The small little pinions that buzzed in his chest knew her—knew that she was someone to him.

"Who is she?" he whispered, his eyes flying open.

That heavy notion—rising, rising. The pinion was growing brighter—like the sun. It was fleshing and forming and molding. It was lacing through his words and his mind, it was twining into his heart and blossoming through his blood. Awakening, as if from a very long slumber.

_Maybe that's your 'something productive,' Mad Hatter.  
_

"Something productive?" asked the bedazzled young man. "Mad…Hatter?"

_Once Upon a Golden Afternoon._

Reginald cried out in pain, shoving the palms of his hands into his eyes. They watered, and throbbed. The pain was rushing down his spine now, springing into nerve endings—making him move. Making him productive. He stood without a second thought and ran for the door. He wrenched it open and hurried down the hallway. With each step he stood straighter—with each step he missed down the stairs his eyes grew brighter—brighter until they shown a bright, unearthly blue, and danced with rays of golden afternoons.

At the bottom of the steps, he bumped into Neal and seized him by the shoulders. They connected eyes. A moment of relapse. A pause. And then Neal whispered, "Oh my whiskers—Alice!"

"Alice!" Reginald repeated, shaking his shoulders.

"Alice!" they chanted together, and without another word darted out of the building and down the street, and knew exactly where they had to go. They ran up the stoop to a Victorian-encrusted building with violet siding and a thatched black roof. They banged on the door and asked for Bert.

The butler looked confused, and asked "The chimney sweep?"

"Oh bloody never-mind!" Reginald rolled his eyes and forced himself inside. He skidded down the wooden hallway into the living room, and banged on the sides of the fireplace, calling up to the boy stuck in the chimney. "Bert!"

An echoing voice respond, "What do you want?" A pause. Again, another relapse. "We're late, aren't we?"

"We're more than late! C'mon you stupid rabbit!"

"But—" a yelp echoed all the way down the chimney, accompanied by the chimney sweep whom had lost his footing. Bert tumbled on top of Reginald, and they rolled out of the fireplace in a mass of soot, smoke, and coal. Bert wiped his blackened face on his dirty sleeves, grabbed his broom, and helped Reginald up with it. The two boys locked eyes. A shimmering burst of gold encompassed Bert's irises, and faded to ivy. "Oh dear," he whispered.

"Big problem," Reginald agreed.

The butler of the house rushed into the living room from all the racket, and paled at the sight of the sooty mess. "What in the heavens—you little trouble makers! I better see this cleaned up before the master gets home!"

The two boys ignored him, and b-lined around the distraught butler. The old man grappled for them with gnarled white-gloved fingers, but missed the springy two by miles. Before he could shout out again in warning, the boys were gone, down the damp street and into the mass of London. Towards a string pulling, pulling—towards memories washing and waning, tugging at their limbs to keep them moving. Towards rain, and greenish gloom. Towards something they couldn't quite fathom yet. They were running up the steep cobblestone streets towards the wrought-iron gates that curved and curtsied like flaming vines. They were pushing it open, heading towards the small mass of people hovering over two insignificant graves. Towards a crescendo. Towards a light.

The White Rabbit, Mad Hatter, and March Hare were running—birthing into life through the drizzle and dark rain that had painted them dead so long ago—towards another chance for tea, and the distant smell of golden afternoons.

Towards, inevitably, Alice.

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_Review?  
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	9. Chapter Eight

Simple and sweet. Next chapter should be coming soon! *collective shouts of glee*

PS - Did I mention that I sincerely adore Madam Gazelle? I have no idea why, but I really like her!

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Once Upon a Golden Afternoon**  
Chapter 8**  
_After the Grave_

The adults faded away like rainclouds on a sunny day, leaving Alice alone by her parents' fresh grave. It smelled like good dirt, Alice thought, wholesome dirt that she could sink down on her knees into, and the dirt would be there for padding when she cried. She wouldn't start crying right away, no. The tears that were locked behind her cornflower eyes wouldn't flow until the dirt had long-since been trodden and compacted, worn away and sodded over with fresh grass. No, Alice wouldn't cry. Grown-ups didn't cry.

Beside her, leaning her fragile frame on a crooked oaken cane, was the still ever-shadowing Madam Gazelle, a hand stately clasped upon her heart as if she knew the bodies buried beneath the soft mesh of loam and fresh grass. As if she knew the souls the bodies once encompassed, and felt pity.

Alice, at least, thought she did.

"We will need to discuss your options, Alice," Madam Gazelle finally intoned in her vulture-like voice. "Now that you have...acquired certain pieces of monetary value, we will need to reassess the wills and your future."

Alice looked at her, startled. "But Father wanted me to stay at Marionette's—"

"It is out of the question," said the headmistress. "The government has policies, Alice. If it were in my power..." she tightened her grip on her cane. "There is a time and a place to discuss these matters, and it is not here."

"Yes madam," she said softly, and looked back to her parents' tombstone. "I am sixteen."

"That you are, Miss Pleasance."

"Marrying age," she realized, and felt a quiver come over her. "I will need to be married?"

To this, the Madam only gave one single, solitary nod. There were social rules, customs, and regulations to follow. Although a sixteen-year-old was not a legal adult by any standards, she was legal enough to be wed, and bed, and propped up in the living room with a knitting set to be admired and adored. Her throat constricted at this intricate acting. She wouldn't be happy like that. She wouldn't be sound.

_I will not make a good wife, either,_ she reminded herself. "But until then?" her voice was emotionless as well, easily disguising her dread.

"We shall see."

They drifted into a long stint of silence after, until a barrage of footsteps greeted their silence. Footsteps running, and suddenly stopping. Madam Gazelle gave the briefest glance over her shoulder, and then said,

"Alice, I believe we have a few late mourners. Are they friends of yours?"

The young blonde spun quickly around, and found three of the dirtiest boys she would ever meet. Two of which were covered in slime and chimney mess, and the third looked to have been drowned repeatedly in puddles that went up to his knees. At the very sight of them, she smiled. She smiled through the rawness in her eyes.

"Oh yes, Madam, they are."

"Very well then. I shall wait for you in the carriage." The old woman rose her head, and stalked off over the graves of long-dead people to the carriage at the front of the cemetery. She mounted inside the black carriage, and drew the dark curtains closed.

None of the girls at Marionette wanted to come, and Alice hadn't invited any of them anyway. They didn't care, and the ones that acted as if they did weren't very good at acting. Even Madam Gazelle, in all her human compassion, had failed to meet any certain mourning requirement. And all the other adults who had attended were business associates and neighbors—none of whom were especially fond of the Pleasance family, but were obligated in their humanly duty to mourn with the last surviving Pleasance.

_I am the last_, she thought soberly. She had not cousins nor aunts nor grandmothers. She had no one. _I am the last Pleasance._

This realization made he shiver with cold unknown. If she was the last, then no one could ever carry the family name again. For forever on, she was the last. Like a dying breed of dodo birds.

The three boys—Bert, Neal, and Reginald—took off their sooty tams and came up to stand beside the graves. Bert put his hand through hers and smiled reassuringly.

"It'll be OK, Miss Alice. You'll see."

To that, the young woman gave a simple nod.

Neal added, "There's other fish in the sea. You're not alone!"

Reginald agreed, "And if you ever need anyone, we're here." And there were more meaning in those words than what it seemed.

Again, all she could manage was a nod. Simple, soft, and resigned. Wholly unlike the Alice she had been once upon a golden afternoon. She took a deep breath, and squeezed

Bert's hand in return. The locket about her neck felt cold, dripping of rain and silvery frost.

Finally, she muttered softly, "I wish I never left Wonderland."

And they, in equal soft dour, agreed.


End file.
